


Seasons

by Augustus



Category: The Fast Show
Genre: M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-08-22
Updated: 2001-08-22
Packaged: 2018-03-08 12:22:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3209009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Augustus/pseuds/Augustus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ralph looks back on his memories of Ted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seasons

I've known him all my life, a steadfast constant within all my memories. As a boy, I'd watch him, then only a young man himself, as he tended to the humble tasks set him by the head groundsman. I was fascinated by the slow care he gave to every motion, sitting cross-legged beside him, eyes fixed on slim hands darkened by the earth they tended. Strands of dark hair, having escaped from beneath his cap, framed a face turned brown by long days beneath the summer sun. It was not an elegant face, nothing extraordinary in its lines, but even then, it pleased me to look at him.

My father had little time for me, my mother too busy with the running of the household to spend a lot of time in play. Having no siblings, then, I spent a great deal of time by myself. As strange as it may seem, the time spent watching Ted became the bright point of my days. He never spoke much - that hasn't changed greatly over the years - but I always felt a quiet companionship in his company.

As the years passed, I had less time for idling away the hours seated in tickle-long grass, silently watching the steady movements that had become so dear to me. I was sent away to public school, my days filled now instead with sums and textbooks, my only reminder of home being an occasional letter from my mother and the tantalising scent of fresh-cut grass drifting through the window of a classroom. Holidays were my paradise - long summer days spent in the fields, learning to hunt and to fish and perhaps even catching a glimpse of Ted working tireless in the distance.

I remember once being collected from school on a rare weekend, so that I could attend the wedding of Ted and his late wife, a gentle girl from the nearby village. My father complained at having to lower himself to the celebrations of the 'help' but I was morbidly fascinated with the ceremony. Ted was barely recognisable in his suit, the new Mrs. Ted glowing with a happiness that I wanted only to see torn tattered from her face. I think it was then that I realised, although it is only recently that I've come to admit it, even to myself.

I eventually moved on to university, some of the darkest months of my life. It wasn't for me, and Ted was kind enough to visit me in hospital, bearing daffodils from the meadows and uncomfortable conversation about the drainage problems in the lower field. I, in turn, prattled mindlessly about the food and a failed dramatic endeavour.

Soon after Ted's visit, I was judged well. I returned to the family property and to idyllic days walking the grounds, occasionally stopping to watch Ted work, admiring the flex of wiry muscles almost hidden beneath the harsh cloth of his shirt. With time he seemed to grow uneasy in my presence, as though succumbing to the beastly class divide, silence spiralled by my father's death and my inheritance.

Years passed, time crept.

Ted and his wife had children, then grandchildren. My mother died and I was left alone in the big house. The highlights of my days remained the bittersweet times I'd spend in the company of Ted's silence, although on occasion they were also the most painful. Troubled by memories of childhood conversations, I'd try to draw him into speech only to be rebuffed without a word. Sometimes I would just stand, silent, beside him, searching for the ultimate witticism with which to entice a flickered smile from his lips, eventually walking away again without disrupting the quiet hum of bees in clover and the soft-distant birdsong from the hedgerows.

I don't know when I fell in love with Ted, couldn't name a moment now clouded by the passing of the years, but I remember keenly the moment I first admitted it to myself. It was a summer's afternoon, one of those golden days where the sunlight seems to shimmer in the air and the scent of flowers and grass becomes a heady drug within the nostrils. I was speaking of irrelevancies to Ted's barely hearing ears, when suddenly everything made sense, painfully so, and I knew I loved him.

It was not a life-altering realisation. Days passed, months, even years, all in the same, steady manner so reminiscent of Ted himself. I came to live for the moments I would spend in his presence, contriving foolish excuses in order to appear less pathetic. I came almost to accept the futility of my emotion, although I would spend long nights in front of a red-radiant fireplace thinking thoughts I would gladly have cast aside were it possible for me to do so.

There is no future for us; I know that. Yet, with the recent death of Mrs. Ted, I occasionally allow myself to hope that one day I will walk the grounds _with_ him, feeling, for the first time, as though I was truly a man, truly alive. Autumn-heavy clouds, the rustle of drying leaves beneath our feet and Ted's labour-worn hand held tight within my own... And the dreams are almost enough.

**22-08-2001**


End file.
